


Ars Longa

by Castiron



Category: In This House of Brede - Rumer Godden
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiron/pseuds/Castiron
Summary: In a gallery in Paris, as a young man, Stefan made his first acquaintance with Abbess Hester Cunningham Proctor of Brede, though at the time he did not know her name.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 38
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Ars Longa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tryfanstone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/gifts).



In a gallery in Paris, as a young man, Stefan made his first acquaintance with Abbess Hester Proctor Cunningham of Brede, though at the time he did not know her name.

The exhibit was of sculptures from many artists, works in stone, bronze, or wood, all of Biblical themes. Stefan studied each, admiring the skill and vision each artist had brought to their work. Then he reached the last one and halted.

 _"The Woman Caught in Adultery", by a Benedictine of Brede._ Such a simple title, for such a work. Instead of the side view of a woman kneeling before Christ, the sculptor had chosen a frontal view, as if the viewer stood in Christ's place to judge her. _This should have been hung lower,_ Stefan thought; _the angle is not quite right where it is._

He could not recall afterwards how long he had stood there, oblivious to the people passing around him.

The work was for sale, but at a price far beyond his means. Some months later, Stefan inquired of the gallery owner and learned that the piece had been purchased by the British art critic Sir Basil Egerton. He resigned himself to the loss—one could not, after all, possess more than a very little of the great art of the world—and returned to his own work.

* * *

It was over thirty years later that Stefan met Sir Basil, when Stefan's own reputation had grown; Stefan was invited to speak in London, and then afterwards to attend a reception at Sir Basil's home. And Stefan's first words to Sir Basil were, "You purchased a piece from Galerie Thiry, 'The Woman Caught in Adultery'. Is it still in your keeping? I have wished for so long to see it again."

"Indeed it is. After the guests have left, I'll show it to you."

The reunion with a piece of art is much like the reunion with a long-absent friend. One experiences the strange in the familiar, the inexorable wear of time, and if fortunate, the renewal of the love you felt on last seeing them. And in this case.... "You have hung it correctly," Stefan said.

"Yes, the gallery had it far too high."

At last, Stefan turned away. "Thank you. This Benedictine is a true artist."

Sir Basil smiled. "Would you like to meet her?"

* * *

Stefan followed Sir Basil Egerton into the Brede Abbey parlor. Two straight chairs sat in front of a grille; the extern sister set down the tea tray and left them alone. A few minutes later, another nun entered the other side and limped to her seat. "Sir Basil, what a delight to see you again."

"And you. May I present M. Stefan Duranski?"

Lady Abbess Cunningham Proctor turned her small dark eyes on him. "Monsieur Duranski, the pictures I have seen of your work are incredible. You have been given a great gift indeed."

She was old indeed, lined and faded, but she caught the eye. Stout like a plinth; steady as the gaze of a statue. Her hands were wrinkled and spotted with age, but Stefan thought he could still see the faded marks from a tool or chip of wood gone astray; art left its scars.

"I have wanted to meet you ever since I saw your work in Paris, so many years ago. 'The Woman Caught in Adultery.' It has stayed in my heart ever since."

Her smile broadened. "That was one of my last pieces. I completed it just before I was elected Abbess."

Sir Basil shook his head. "And you gave up your gift!"

"It was never mine. It has always been God's, and I returned it to Him when I took vows here. He has had me use it as much as He wished. So, Monsieur, tell me of your current work."

They talked for many minutes about Stefan's current commissions, the recently completed Pieta in Milan, the Adam in Chicago—"bronze, not stone, but it is good for me to remember the other materials from time to time". At last, the Abbess said to Stefan, "You have seen our sanctuary?"

"I have." Sir Basil had taken him to see it, before they had gone to the parlor.

She looked keenly at him. "And do you see what I see?"

"That it could be truly beautiful? Yes."

She nodded. "I would like to correspond with you further about this."

* * *

My dear Lady Abbess Cunningham Proctor,

Of course I will take this commission. Your sanctuary has the bones. It will be a glorification when it is done, a glorification of—I call it Art; you call it God; perhaps in the end they are one and the same?

You ask about the cost of this work. The workmen must be paid, and the stone purchased. I can waive some of my recompense for the privilege of serving your abbey, but it will still come to six or seven thousand pounds. Will this be possible for you?

Stefan Duranski

* * *

Dear M. Duranski,

...God is not Art, but Art is surely a blessing of God through which we can better see him. Through our tiny attempts at creation, we grow to know our Creator; through the best sculpture and painting and other forms of art, we receive insight and wisdom that we are unable to receive through words.

I have found a source for the money, so we may begin.

Abbess Hester Cunningham Proctor

* * *

It had been so short a time that he knew her, before she departed beyond his reach. When the news reached him in Paris, he went to his studio and wept.

The work went on. He mourned that she would never see the finished pieces, and at Brede while he worked he sometimes listened for the limping step that was now halted—perhaps healed, perhaps merely at rest.

But the work went on. And the new Abbess Catherine Ismay slowly became a friend, one with whom he would correspond for the rest of his life. And the day that he packed his tools for the final time in Brede, he looked upon the altar, the crucifix, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, and whispered, "My dear friend Hester, if you can see this, I hope you are pleased."

* * *

He was almost finished with his work in Chicago when he received a letter from a church in Boston, commissioning a statue of the church's namesake saint. His heart leapt as he read the name: St. Catherine of Bologna.

Patron saint of artists.

Already Stefan knew what her face would look like. The surface would be different, none of the wrinkles or sagging of age, but the bones, those would be the same as those that rested in the graveyard at Brede. 

_They will remember you, my friend. And if you are right and there is a life after this, when they meet you they will recognize you from the form I have made._


End file.
